Day of Ashes
by tripping fruit
Summary: Amon. Robin. Theological angst. So begins the forty days and forty nights until Easter.


A/N: Sorry about the screwy formatting. I continue to have problems  
  
with MS Word, which means that everything I write is other programs.  
  
That sucks, a lot, if you haven't been there before. Anyway. Yeah.  
  
I don't know much about Catholicism, actually, and what I do know has  
  
been passed on to me by people who are Catholic. The emotions and  
  
opinions in this piece were passed on to me by Catholics, as well,  
  
so, yeah. I don't ascribe to any particular religion myself, so don't  
  
think I'm just randomly knocking God or organized religion or anything.  
  
Like I said, I'm just taking what people have told me about before and  
  
sticking it into Amon's head. Also, I had some people point out that  
  
Amon, being Japanese, more than likely wouldn't be Catholic. Yeah,  
  
true. However, this story takes place about two years after the end of   
  
WHR in my little continuing imaginary story arc that I've made up for  
  
WHR (because I'm a weirdo), and said story arc contains the completely  
  
unfounded fact that Amon's mother was European (which country, I haven't  
  
decided yet ^^), and therefore he got kind of an interesting upbringing.  
  
That shall probably be highlighted in a fic, later. But for now I've done  
  
enough dumbass rambling, and it is time to read.  
  
--------------------  
  
Day of Ashes  
  
by meris ann  
  
--------------------  
  
Her eyes were hungry and eager there as they stood in line. The emotions that  
  
took possession of Robin seen by way of her eyes barely made any sense to  
  
Amon; God knows /he'd/ never felt that way while in church, while hearing  
  
any of the bullshit spouted at him by the father, while being forced into a  
  
small wooden booth to confess things that he didn't really feel bad about to  
  
a man who more than likely didn't care. Amon believed in God.  
  
He did /not/ believe in Catholicism. And it was as simple as that. His  
  
experiences with organised religion, especially concerning what he was now--a  
  
witch--were not particularly friendly. He believed in God but he believed in   
  
the ability to be able to choose your own destiny, to be able to make things  
  
happen by taking them into your own hands and /forcing/ them to go that way.  
  
God, he figured, controlled little to nothing, when it really came down to it.   
  
God was much more of a benevolent older brother figure, hovering above the earth,   
  
looking down and wondering what the hell his children were doing. The concept  
  
of Heaven and Hell definitely bothered Amon, that was for sure. He really had  
  
a bit of difficulty grasping that one could go to only one or the other. Black.   
  
White. No grey. Amon considered himself a mass of grey, whether or not he let  
  
people know it, and the fact that there was no room in organised religion for  
  
people like him, quite frankly, scared the hell out of him.  
  
Best to ignore it.  
  
Besides, he was a witch. Most organised religions would have predestined him to   
  
Hell just for that, anyway.   
  
He'd given up. He hadn't been to Confession since he was about fifteen; hadn't  
  
received the ashes on his forehead in about as much time. He'd sat in on a few  
  
masses but that had usually been because he was either forced to by family  
  
or for work purposes. As a child the tales of hellfire and brimstone had   
  
confused the hell out of him, the threats of eternal damnation and corruption  
  
of his soul had annoyed him as a young adult.  
  
Since then, he'd been largely on his own, forming his own opinions. Those   
  
opinions, Amon suspected, were probably mostly what would be regarded as   
  
heresy, but he didn't really care. He'd edited religion to a point where he  
  
could deal with it, and he suspected that toleration was all that mattered.  
  
He was quite certain that Jesus didn't really care, in actuality. He was   
  
probably fairly busy with other things to worry about what each and every  
  
individual person thought about his church that he hadn't /really/ even  
  
founded. It had been started in the Middle Ages by a bunch of crazy  
  
people and had eventually evolved into a really good way to make money.  
  
So Amon thought. He kept his mouth shut. The look in Robin's eyes was too  
  
wonderful.  
  
For as much as he thought that a great deal of the teachings of the Catholic  
  
church were complete and utter bullshit, Amon still marveled at those who  
  
could seek out and follow said teachings. Usually he marveled at them because  
  
he thought they were complete idiots, but every once in a while he ran across  
  
someone whom he marveled at because they were managing to ascribe to two   
  
completely different things--or so /he/ thought--what Jesus had advocated,  
  
and what the church advocated. The church was off its rocker. Jesus had  
  
been a pretty visionary person. The two did not go hand in hand. Every once in  
  
a while, Amon would meet someone who was pretty much in what he thought would have  
  
been Jesus's good graces, had the man still been around. Yet said someone  
  
would usually continue to go to church, to act like it still mattered, because  
  
to some degree, said someone still believed that it /did/.  
  
Jesus, yes. Church, no.  
  
And that was why he was there on Dies Cinerum--Day of Ashes--Ash Wednesday--in  
  
line, with all the other good little sheep, waiting for the dab of dirt on his  
  
forehead so he could feel special and feel like he was going to Heaven. And  
  
yet there was Robin, a light in her eyes like she was a kid on Christmas Eve  
  
waiting for the man in the red suit to show up. She wasn't just waiting, jaded,  
  
for the ashes like he was. She was waiting like her life depended on it; waiting  
  
like she was truly, deeply, excited. She waited like she couldn't wait in line,  
  
as if at any moment she was going to spring forward and push people out of  
  
the way, running right to the father for her mark of absolution, the mark that  
  
was a reminder of her own mortality, the mark that was a symbol of her slavery  
  
unto God, the mark that signified the beginning of a fasting denial.   
  
Robin was eager, willing. Not jaded. She believed in the church, for all it had  
  
wronged her, despite the fact that some of its higher members had ordered her  
  
death. She could not distinguish God from the church, as Amon did, but  
  
her stubborn refusal to become bitter and to turn her back on the church that  
  
had raised her only awed Amon all the more. She had been ready at one point  
  
in time to give her life, her soul, her body, her /everything/ to the church  
  
and receive nothing in return but a guaranteed spot in Heaven and a decent  
  
chance at canonization in a couple hundred years or whenever the church got  
  
around to it--/hell/, the very thought of it made Amon's stomach turn into  
  
knots, bewildered him. He couldn't imagine /anyone/ wanting to do  
  
such a thing with their life, wanting nothing more than to become a bride of  
  
Christ--which is exactly what she would have become, had the church not   
  
started to fear her and turn her over to their big brother, SOLOMON. She  
  
never would have met him, probably never had funny feelings in her stomach  
  
about a member of the opposite sex, never would have killed, never would   
  
have been branded as a witch, never would have had to live like an outlaw.  
  
The thought that she never would have met him, in retrospect, frightened  
  
him most of all.  
  
Only a few more people now; and Robin leaned forward so hard as she waited in  
  
line that Amon swore she would fall on her face, creating a domino effect  
  
among the good sheep of God waiting there for some dirt on their forehead.  
  
Four. Three. Robin sniffled; she had been recovering from a particularly  
  
nasty cold that had actually rather concerned Amon for a few days. Two.  
  
One. A very old woman in front of Robin, kneeling before the ancient,  
  
just-as-dirty-as-the-rest-of-us father (Amon's mind reeled, cursed, spat,  
  
what made him better than anyone else, god-damned old man holier-than-thou  
  
fucker); mark on the forehead, rising, leaving.  
  
Robin's turn.  
  
She practically ran, she moved so quickly. Down on her knees before the father,  
  
head bowed slightly; Robing clung desperately to some semblance of the good,  
  
pure, non-damned life that she had lived before they'd called her a witch and  
  
sent her packing from the convent in Italy to SOLOMON. He could almost  
  
/feel/ her holding her breath.   
  
"Remember, child, that thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return," the father  
  
murmured just as he had to everyone, and made a quick dabbing on Robin's   
  
perfect, white forehead. She stood, turning, not even catching his eyes as she  
  
did, so heightened was her rapture, her immersal. A faint, somewhat sloppy  
  
X (barely even an X, more like a simple mark) was thumbed upon her forehead   
  
like a child's fingerpainting. It was his turn, and she walked away from  
  
him like a zombie.  
  
Amon knelt before the father, feeling fifteen but infinitely wiser. He  
  
couldn't even bring himself to close his eyes as the father spoke the   
  
same words to him that he had spoken to Robin; instead, as the old man  
  
made the mark of the cross upon his forehead, Amon looked to the side,   
  
blankly. He no longer cared. He was only here because Robin had insisted,  
  
because he had thought that she would cry if he denied her the right to  
  
attend church on Ash Wednesday.   
  
"I don't even remember the last Ash Wednesday service that I attended," he'd  
  
remarked, while walking through the narrow, winding streets of Rheims, France.  
  
"/You're/ Catholic?" Robin asked, in wonder, her face looking up at him. As  
  
she got older, a few freckles along her cheeks and her nose had darkened, giving   
  
her a sort of innocently sexy look, kind of girl-next-door-except-way-more-dangerous.   
  
Funny he should ponder that on their way to church.  
  
"Was," Amon replied. "I don't know many my age who were raised Catholic who  
  
still are," he added, dryly. "Or who even believe in God, anymore." In  
  
response, Robin had merely looked upset.  
  
He got up; didn't look at the father, didn't thank him, didn't make the sign  
  
of the cross. Didn't look at anyone else as he walked away, didn't think.  
  
He resisted the strong urge to wipe away the ashes on his forehead. Just as   
  
he thought about doing it, he looked up to see Robin waiting for him at the   
  
end of the nave, a somehow pleased look on her face. Only to make her   
  
happy--never in a million years, other than that, would he have been  
  
caught dead receiving the ashes again in his life.  
  
"Are you ready?" he asked as he reached her, pointedly trying to ignore  
  
the delicate curve of her lips, the glow in her eyes--dear God, he thought,  
  
she looked as if she'd just finished making love, not enduring a church  
  
service. Perhaps that was the sign of one who had been meant to be a  
  
bride of Christ. As long as she was pleased, as long as it all made  
  
her think that he was just as saved as her, then it was all fine.  
  
"Yes," she replied, strands of her hair falling down over the ash on her  
  
forehead as she turned for the door. Amon followed her, his mind a knot  
  
of philosophical, theological, and sexual ramblings.  
  
They walked side by side in silence for quite some time, by far not the only  
  
pedestrians with the mark on their forehead. More people than not had the  
  
mark, actually, which didn't shock Amon. It didn't seem to shock Robin  
  
either. They rounded a corner, Robin's eyes gazing at a man selling  
  
fruit from a street stand as they turned, and all of a sudden, she sighed.  
  
"Do you think we did the wrong thing, going there today?" she asked,  
  
without preamble. Amon sighed, himself: he'd expected this kind of  
  
whiplash from the event.  
  
"What do you mean?" he asked, flatly. His mind was already made up about  
  
the situation; however, he remembered being in Robin's shoes, once,   
  
being seventeen and not really understanding the whole God bit. Obviously  
  
she had it a bit worse than he had it seeing as how she was the Eve of   
  
Witches and all, but still. Any seventeen year old kid with questions  
  
about God and the church was just the same as all of his or her peers.  
  
She bit her lip, her words seemingly stuck in her throat. Robin winced,   
  
slightly; it was almost as if her words literally /were/ stuck in her  
  
throat, as if they caused her pain as she forced them out. "Did we  
  
deserve to be there? To receive the ashes, from the father?"  
  
Amon shrugged, slightly. "Why not?"  
  
Again, she looked pained. "We aren't God's children, anymore."  
  
"Who says?" He didn't feel like filling in the whole picture for her, for  
  
some reason.  
  
"To be hunted by the same church that grants our absolution?" she murmured, it   
  
seemed, mostly to herself. "Not suffering a witch to live? Did.../did/ we  
  
deserve to be there, Amon?"  
  
When she said his name like that, so lost, he couldn't help but help her.  
  
"Why not? You and I have as much of a right to be there as anyone. The   
  
church is not the one who grants us absolution--that's God. And God doesn't  
  
forget about his children, or forsake them, as far as I knew. I didn't see  
  
God there in that cathedral, did you?" he asked her, pointedly but gently,   
  
as gently as he could, anyway, without letting her through the wall.  
  
"No," she murmured, and it was then that Amon noticed that her steps had slowed,  
  
and he slowed down to match her pace. "But--how do you know?"  
  
"I thought that you, of all people, would have understood that part," Amon  
  
replied, feeling as if he was acting snide, but not meaning it in the least.  
  
"Faith. I don't /really/ know. No one does. You can only believe what  
  
you believe--and I happen to believe that God is not as much of a   
  
narrow-minded zealot as they would make him out to be."  
  
Robin had slowed down even more whether or not she realized it, and the only  
  
thing Amon could do was once again match his pace to hers. "Amon?" she  
  
queried, sounding small and broken. He swallowed hard.  
  
"Do you think that He still understands us? Still thinks that we are   
  
trying to do good?" she asked, smaller still and shattering into smaller  
  
pieces.  
  
"Yes," he answered without thought. Whatever. Whichever. Whatever made that  
  
desperate sound in her voice go away.  
  
"I just..." She'd stopped walking completely, then, and it had actually taken   
  
Amon a couple of steps to realize that. He stopped a bit ahead of her and   
  
turned, looking back at her, wishing he could just pull a note out of his  
  
pocket and say, "Here, kiddo. This is the secret to life. Read this  
  
and let me know what you think in five minutes."  
  
"I just wish I knew," she finished moments later, turning her face to the  
  
cobblestones, slightly away from him, and he knew why almost instantaneously.  
  
Her face was scrunching, slightly; voice becoming thicker, eyes starting to drip.  
  
She was crying and Amon instantly felt like an ass, like he always did, like it  
  
was always his fault. "I just wish I knew--" Robin stopped, overcome, sniffling.  
  
A small hiccupping noise escaped her and she turned away from him a bit more,  
  
obviously embarassed that she'd broken down thusly. She always did try  
  
to act so big in front of him, even when he could tell that she didn't feel  
  
like it.  
  
"I just wish I knew if He would still want me," she heaved quietly, snuffling.  
  
"If I would still be fit for His service, if He still sees me as one of His  
  
special children."  
  
The absolute despair, loneliness, and self-doubt in her voice twisted his gut   
  
and gave him a new reason to dislike the church. Before God, before the church,  
  
Robin had nothing--and then she'd been taught by one of those entities that there  
  
was nothing else in life. Now, in direct contradiction with the church by her  
  
very existence, she felt as if she had nothing again.   
  
"Robin." For a moment all he could do was watch her, helpless, as she cried quietly,  
  
standing there a few feet away from him. Then he remembered that he was good for  
  
something and crossed the space between them purposefully, enfolding her in his   
  
arms and holding her to him, feeling like it was the best thing he could do. Her  
  
tears soaked through his coat, through his shirt, through his skin; ate at his  
  
soul like acid. After two years of being with her he'd seen her cry her share of   
  
tears plenty often, but no time had they struck him like they struck him at this  
  
moment.  
  
"Robin," he said again, moving her away from him slightly so he could look down   
  
into her face, still so far below his own--she still had never grown any taller  
  
over the years. Bleary-eyed, runny-nosed, she couldn't quite meet his gaze,  
  
and he sighed, sensing that he was on the losing end of the battle between  
  
man versus establishment.  
  
Leaning over her, one hand on her neck and the other on her cheek, he laid his  
  
lips on her forehead, right on the spot where the father had fingerpainted her  
  
with holy ashes. His lips tasted the sweetness of her skin and the dusty, smoky  
  
taste of incense-smoked year-old palm leaves in one touch. She calmed against  
  
his touch, her shaking ceasing.  
  
Drawing back, he stayed close enough to where she could not look up into his eyes.  
  
"Remember, Robin, that Christ was just a man," he said slowly, quietly, the  
  
words coming from within him somewhat that opened like a floodgate whether or  
  
not he had wanted it to. "Christ was just a man--and what man could not want  
  
you?" he said, and had it been any other circumstances he would have bit his  
  
tongue, retreated into silence and solitary for days at a time, avoided her.  
  
But not this time. Amon felt that he had said what needed to be said.  
  
She drew back slightly after one still moment, looking up at him with teary  
  
wonder; a saved soul masquerading as a damned one, a virgin unwittingly acting  
  
as a temptress, a girl on the verge of woman, wanting to remain holy as  
  
what she was but wanting to be his at the same time. Their eyes locked and   
  
they stared at each other for what may have been moments or minutes, but   
  
a sudden, tremulous smile crept out on her sad features, her watery green  
  
eyes sparkling with timid joy and unshed water.  
  
"You have ashes on your lips," Robin whispered, as if she was afraid that if  
  
she spoke any louder that she would pop the moment like the skin of a   
  
soap bubble. Timidly or daringly, depending upon how Amon wanted to look  
  
at it, she reached up with a thin, long-fingered hand and touched his lips  
  
softly, brushing against them so lightly that she might not have touched  
  
them at all. Perhaps he was hallucinating. Perhaps he was receiving a  
  
revelation from God.  
  
"Probably," he said, and the sudden movement of his lips made her pull her  
  
hand away, probably startled. Amon's own hand reached out and settled a  
  
large thumb on her forehead, on the ashen X there as her eyes looked  
  
up at him, glistening. "Nothing but old palm leaves and incense smoke, you   
  
know," he said, as much of a lilt in his voice as he could manage. Without  
  
waiting for Robin's agreement or even her words, his thumb had already begun to  
  
rub out the ashes on her forehead, resulting a faint, grey, almost invisible  
  
smear after a couple passes. "Or so they tell you. It could be cigarette  
  
ashes for all you and I know."  
  
Robin managed a weak smile at him, through her sadness, her despair, and  
  
that was worth being sacreligeous to him. He would have gone through  
  
Hell and come back--and he was certain he had, before--to see that   
  
delicate smile come through the gloom like that. She reached up and with the  
  
sleeve of her sweater pulled over the palm of her hand, Robin rubbed at  
  
Amon's forehead as well, shaking her head.  
  
"They /are/ palm leaves," she chided. "Cigarette ashes. You're horrible."  
  
She pulled her hand back and looked at her sweater sleeve; black made grey  
  
where she'd rubbed off all of the ashes. Puckering her lips, she blew,  
  
and a small cloud of white cloudiness rose into the air between them; the  
  
hallowed remnants of burned, blessed plant material.  
  
Remember, child. Thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return. 


End file.
